Small postcard and postage stamp sized paintings from New Zealand artist Paul Hutchinson

Saturday, March 08, 2008

A Couple of Pears

A Couple of PearsOil on gessoed board$200

sold

I was attracted by the colour of these pears. I always find these magenta colours difficult to work with. The problem with bright colour is that it has a tendancy to flatten the forms and as an artist you find yourself in the predicament of either having to sacrifice some of the intensity of the colour or to try and exaggerate the form somehow. I guess this is one reason why I tend towards thick impasto paint. There are two kinds of light in a painting . The pschycological illusion of light that painters (often very skillfully), trick the viewer with, but also the real phisical light that falls on the painted surface and is reflected back to the viewer. That's why for me exhibiting paintings like this on a screen made up of little pixels will always be inadaquate. The phisical presence of a painting is always of the utmost importance and joy for me. I have always admired painters who's painting goes beyond the mere clever illustrative rendering of things. One of my favourites is Lucian Freud - surely the greatest living figurative painter - who said he didn't just want his paint to resemble flesh, he wanted it to "be flesh". Well, I know my humble pears pale by comparison, but I'm always trying to give something of the actual presence of things and not just their outward appearance.